Reviews

RTX America, today announced U.S. general availability of PORTALphone, a hybrid, web-enabled cordless phone allowing consumers to view customized web content on a color display. It's a pretty cool phone and would love to review it, but alas I still have an RTX DualPhone I haven't tested. Soon though...

I was just on Microsoft BetaPlace downloading the Microsoft Device Emulator 1.0 Community Preview to test Windows Mobile 5.0 with Exchange ActiveSync and the download timed-out at 98%. 2% remaining? Such a tease... I then tried accessing http://beta.microsoft.com from and it too timed-out.

Cisco at 12am March 6th will launch their new Unified Communications System (www.cisco.com/go/unified) aimed at streamlining business processes, and helping to drive productivity. Unified Communications (UC) will feature new presence, desktop tools, mobile integration and network intelligence to improve business agility and customer interaction, but just as importantly as I will indicate later, Cisco is fully embracing the SIP standard on their desktop phones. I interviewed Cisco last week and they told me that I was the first journalist or analyst to have a "first look" at this major announcement.

Cisco IP phone & the new IP Communicator softclient

Perhaps I misread the tone of the Cisco representatives during my call, but they initially seemed to downplay the significance of Cisco's embracing of SIP in favor of focusing on the entire Unified Communications platform. But in my opinion, Cisco embracing SIP is just as big news as their Unified Communications system, but more on that later.

Essentially, Cisco Systems, unveiled the Cisco Unified Communications system, which is a new suite of voice, data and video products and applications specifically designed to help organizations of all sizes to communicate more effectively.

Just wanted to share some recent IP-PBX vs. traditional TDM PBX market share numbers from Infonetics that came out today. Infonetics tracked Cisco and determined they were the market leader with 42% unit market share in 2005. I wonder if Infonetics also tracks Asterisk?

You gotta love the premise of the Sony Pictures movie Click that opens in June -- that life can be controlled by a remote control, just like TV.Â Adam Sandler (he can be very funny) operates that colorful and surprising simply laid out "Life Menu" remote (so few buttons! two in a row, four rows), pausing, rewinding and fast-forwarding as necessary to improve the quality of his life. Those close to him also apparently benefit too as evidenced by the â€śbaseball catchâ€ť clip that aired during the Grammy Awards.

Iâ€™d rate this a â€śmust watchâ€ť video or PPV choice, meaning donâ€™t know if itâ€™d be worth the multiple prices of admission at the local movie theater â€“ not to mention the cost of the essential â€śKing Kongâ€ť-size combo food snack.Â (Doesnâ€™t popcorn just taste better at the movie theater?)

For those of you who fear no beta and love to be the first one to get your hands on anything new, Microsoft is making a beta preview of its upcoming web browser, IE 7, available to developers and enthusiasts at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ie7/default.mspx.

(You may call this product by its full name, Internet Explorer 7, too.)

IE 7 offers dynamic security protection and makes everyday tasks easier with improved platform and manageability (at least according to Microsoft). I'm sure they have listened and learned from all of those error reports they receive daily.

I met with Digium's founder, Mark Spencer yesterday to discuss what was happening with Asterisk. Mark told me that they are working very hard on Jingle support, an open set of extensions to the IETF's Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) for use in VoIP, video, and other peer-to-peer multimedia
sessions. This will enable federation with Google Talk and other Jingle supporters. Mark said that Jingle support will be coming very soon.

A new version of Performancing for Firefox has just been released. The most notable new features are the Technorati tagging support and Delicious bookmark integration. Now that I can tag with Performancing for Firefox I'll have to re-evaluate whether or not to switch from my current WYSIWYG blogging software that I useÂ (HTMLArea). Not being able to tag was a stumbling block for me.

I leave for Internet Telephony Expo tomorrow and I figured I may as well use my blog here as my checklist for stuff I need to do in preparation for the show. I am going to be crazy busy at this show with several appointments, I'm moderating a session, and I hope to blog all the cool stuff happening at the show.

Tom Keating's pre-Internet Telephony Conference & Expo checklist

Bring Nokia N90 phone to ITEXPO and do some live video blogging (vlogs) of the show. I only have a 64MB MMC card though. Thought the Nokia N90 used SD. I was going to pick up a 1GB SD card so I can do some large vlogs.

Rich Tehrani has a very interesting inteview with Andrew Sviridenko of Spirit DSP, where Andrew positions Spirit DSP as a more robust solution than Global IP Sound (GIPS) due to Spirit DSP's better multipoint conferencing support and scalability. The GIPS codec/voice engine is used in Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, and a few other VoIP softphones. Interestingly, Andrew mentions speaking with Microsoft, so if Spirit DSP were to be embedded in a future release of Windows Live Messenger, that would be a huge win for Spirit DSP.

And speaking of Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft's bloggers have been covering the beta of this software and "leaking" some of the really cool features in Windows Live Messenger, including a really neat feature that lets you share your music playlist over the Internet. In fact, one of the Microsoft bloggers, Leah, has an interesting birthday wish:

"For my birthday, I wanted a way to play music on my computer and then invite my buddies to listen with me on his/her computer.